The girls were joined from the lower chest to just above the pelvis. They shared a liver, but doctors started the procedure unsure if they also shared a bowel. Crameri said there were no major problems with the bowel attachment. He said the major challenge had been to reconstruct the twins’ abdomens.

Crameri said the girls would be closely monitored and that his team felt “quietly confident that we will have a good result.”

He added that the girls’ mother, Bhumchu Zangmo, was “smiling, very happy, and grateful.”